Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Check out this firsthand account from KDOT's Aviation Director as she and her 18-year-old teammate participate in the Air Race Classic

Tiffany Brown (left) and Taylor Humphrey (right) pose in front of their aircraft.

(Tiffany Brown of the Kansas
Department of Transportation is the state’s Acting Director of Aviation. She
and her co-pilot, Taylor Humphrey of Winfield, Kan., are competing at team TNT
in this year’s Air Race Classic, a four-day, 2,100-nautical-mile air race for
women. Brown will file two more blogs this week about the race. Below is her first one.)

As it turns out just
getting to the Air Race Classic start would be an adventure in itself. The Air
Race is an all-women's race with roots from the 1929 Powder Puff Derby, which was started by a group of woman including
the famous Kansasaviatrix Amelia Earhart.
The route changes every year and each team is composed of two to three women.
Our team consists of a pilot, myself, and a copilot, 18-year old Taylor
Humphrey from Winfield, Kan.

We intended on leaving Wednesday morning from
Lawrence, Kan., but Tropical Storm Bill threw a couple new challenges our way
in the form of thunderstorms on our intended direct route to Fredericksburg,
Va. Our departure was delayed until we could find a break in the thunderstorms
around noon and we decided to take an indirect loop down south hitting
Sikeston, Mo., then Crossville, Tenn., to stay the night. The flight was mainly
made in instrument meteorological conditions (IMC), which means you can't see
where you are going and you are depending solely on instruments. Imagine
driving in your car in rain so heavy you can't see anything outside and you
must depend on only the information your car's gauges are giving you. That's
IMC and it's very mentally straining. Not only can’t you see, but you also must
dodge the worst part of the storms. We have radar on board the aircraft but it
averages a delay of 6 minutes. Anyone who knows anything about storms knows
that a storm can change a lot in those six minutes. Air traffic control helped
navigate us around parts of the storm that was producing hail and other
convective activity.

The next day was another flight in IMC over the Appalachians, which is terrain
neither of us Kansans are particularly used to. Flying at 7,000 feet we were
just 2,000 feet above some of the highest peaks on our route and the occasional
break in clouds would give us a lovely view below. That flight was relatively
uneventful. No thunderstorm activity and an easy descent into our destination
airport.

As of right now my teammate and I have gone through a full day’s worth of
inspections, which included reviews of our pilot credentials, logbooks for the
upkeep of our airplane's engine and air frame, and a physical inspection of the
airplane itself. Once our aircraft was deemed acceptable, it was impounded until
Tuesday morning when the race finally begins. The rest of the week has been
full of race briefings, which has included
weather, timing and scoring rules, and what to expect during the race. If you
are interested in following our team, Classic Race Team 45, follow this
link: http://airraceclassic.org.
(You can also follow the progress of another Kansas team, the “Wildcats” from
K-State Salina – Classic Race Team 49. Members of the Wildcats are Karen
Morrison, Summer Gajewski and Alisha Kelso.) Each team will carry a
GPS tracking device which allows anyone to follow their favorite racer on the
route.

It's been a humbling
week so far to be in the ranks of so many exciting women. The professions of
the women here vary from doctors to lawyers to professional pilots who have all
been brought together by the love of general aviation.